October 9th, 2006 Spiritual Gifts and God's call
Host: Diane and Scott Mattox
John 10: 1-10

1 "I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. 3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.
7 Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

This was a comfortable Bible study. More desserts than we could eat and we sat down and our group began our discussion of the verse by talking about animals recognizing our voices. After the blessings of the animals on Sunday it seemed fitting.

There were some beautiful stories that came up as we talked about recognizing the good from the voices that would rob you of life. Sharilyn told a story about getting help on the highway from a stranger when she was feeling alone and afraid.

Pastor Dayle talked about the difficulties of this passage, which particularly comes in with verse 8. On the surface it sounds like Jesus is judging everyone coming before as thieves and robbers which is not a message that sits well with us.

We talk about the shepherd's place in ancient society was not well regarded. We talked about the ancient practice shepherd's had of sleeping at the opening of a sheep's pen to act as a living door to keep the sheep in and predator's out.

We closed with prayer and probably everybody was thinking about how they could be more attentive to how they fit into God's purpose.